Here, There, and Everywhere

Busy writer is busy!

But here's a round up of some of the guest blog spots I've done... I've got another one coming up on Friday, so really, I should start thinking about a topic, I know.

By the way, if you want to see what I'm up to Right Now, you can always follow me on Facebook... I post there fairly regularly.

In case you've missed them, however, let me give you  sum-up of the guest posts I've been doing.

First, at the Smokin' Hot Fireman blog, I did an article about my grandfather, who was a volunteer EMT and my experiences seeing a house fire right up close.

He [my grandfather] had his definite ideas about things; everyone should know how to swim, how to drive a boat, a tractor, and a stick-shift. You should know how to perform CPR, change a flat tire, and be able to cook a meal, clean up, and how to build a fire. You should stand up straight, read often, and be able to tell a potato plant from a weed. You should be able to sew on a button and how to drive a nail. You should always read the instructions. You should know how to bait your own hook, catch fish, and clean them. And it didn’t matter to him if you were a boy or a girl.

The grand-kids, and there were a gaggle of us, half girls, half boys, called him Poppy.

When he wasn’t farming or swimming, fishing or reading novels, he was a volunteer EMT. Halfway down the stairs, there was a two-way scanner. Middle of the day or middle of dinner or middle of the night, the scanner would make a warbling alert tones and the dispatcher would come on. “Local Peru, local Peru, we have a building fire at…” and Poppy would be out the door, hat in hand. His car—a very normal-looking car in all other ways—had a magnetic fire bubble he would slap onto the roof, plug into the cigarette lighter, and whoop away down the road.

(The grand-kids all loved to fuss about who got to reset the scanner after a call—since if you didn’t remember to press the button, we wouldn’t hear the next call. And woe betide the kid who punched the reset button before the dispatcher was finished with her information. Why yes, yes I did do that, once. Once.)

I stopped by Victoria Blisse's blog a few weeks back, talking about the first time I ever saw a naked man. All things considered, my weird obsession with music might come from this particular event, as well.

Young African-American men would come to wash their cars, listen to their street-music, drink beer out of squat mikey bottles, and socialize with their friends. There was a wide chain-link fence around the wash, and then a very steep hill into my backyard, but this didn’t keep out the noise, the empty bottles, or the young men who needed to take a piss.

As a twelve-year-old girl who honestly hated both types of music available from our local radio station (you had your country AND your western!) I was enthralled. They played motown. And reggae. And rap. And R&B. Music I’d never heard before. No Tiffany or New Kids on the Block, or Duran Duran for them! There was one guy – I never knew his name, but I always knew his car, a 1977 El Camino, dark blue with a light blue stripe – and he played Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald.

I would lay on the picnic table in our back yard, hands laced behind my head, staring up at the spangled patterns of sunlight through the pink and white petals of the crab apple tree, and just listen.

One hot summer day, I’m out there, a bottle of lemonade that my mom had left in the freezer for me gently melting, pooling condensation against my stomach, when someone crashed through the bushes of the embankment.

And then later, I told the second story at Sarah Jayne Carr's blog. Because you know, if there was a first time for seeing a naked man, the second time could only get more interesting...

So, once a year, I'd spend several weeks at rehearsals, making costumes, learning stage makeup and generally hanging out with other theater geeks. (The rest of the year I hung out with the band geeks, about half of whom were the same people.) One evening, we're hanging out in costumes getting ready to do production photos and a dress-rehearsal. The "professional" photographer is late, so we're all in the green room (which wasn't actually green) or spilled out into the hallway, bullshitting and carefully drinking Dr. Pepper through a straw so we don't mess up our lipstick.

Have you ever stuck a straw in a can of Dr. Pepper? It does not want to be there - the straw, I mean - and will keep sliding upward out of your can. If you're not paying attention, the straw will pop completely out of the can and splatter droplets of soda everywhere.

We're theater geeks. And high school students. And if there's ever been a more concentrated group of dirty minded individuals... wait, scratch that. I've been part of more dirty minded groups...

But we are making bad jokes and generally being obscene....

Finally, yesterday I had a guest slot on Elizabeth A. Lance's blog talking about this, that, and the other. She's a lot of fun to work with and kept asking more and more questions and for more and more information, which was lots of fun to do a really interactive interview. Also, I love all the little cute pictures she picked to represent my interests and quirky habits.

Do you play games? If so what kind? If not, why the heck not?

Would you like my geek resume? I play Star Wars; The Old Republic as my current MMO, but have also played Warcraft, Everquest, City of Villains, Dungeons & Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Rifts, Pirates of the Caribbean Online, Asheron's Call, Guild Wars...

I also play paper and dice RPGs; including Shadowrun, 7th Sea, AD&D, Vampire, Heroes Unlimited, GURPS, Serenity RPG, various d20 games.

I used to play Collectible Card Games until I came to the realization that my friends were all terrible losers and worse winners and I wasn't having fun, but I do like things like Cards Against Humanity and Fluxx. I'm also a mean cribbage player.

(I also might possibly have a really bad Candy Crush Saga problem)

So, that's what I've been up to. I've also gotten two (2) short stories out and available; Synchronous Rotations from Torquere, and my story, Big Trucks, is out in Smokin' Hot Firemen. As always, my complete library of publications and buy links is here (because I am uber-lazy and I don't want to look all those links up. Again.)



In the meanwhile, I've written most of a New Adult, m/m novel, started a short story, finished WRITING (but not selecting or editing) the short-story collection I'm putting together with my best friend and fellow author Elizabeth L. Brooks, talked to one of my new favorite authors, V.L. Locey about writing the forward for that collection (tentatively titled Promptly Hot.), let some deadlines for short stories pass me by, talked with a company about my urban supernatural romance novel published, and freaked out about various home-disasters (annoying backed up sink is annoying) and national media events, spent some time with good friends, and generally went about pretending that I have a life that isn't entirely conducted inside my head.

Also, apparently I have just a few contributor copies laying around...

And I thought I might give some of them away.

Comment here, or post to my facebook wall between now and July 30th with which book(s) you want: available are Ladies of Steampunk magazine, vol 1, 2 copies of Steamlust, 1 copy of Coming Together: Hungry for Love, 1 copy of Smokin' Hot Firemen (I know there are two copies in the picture, but I mixed the books up before I took the picture and put 2 copies of Duty & Desire on my brag-shelf. This has since been fixed.), 2 copies of Duty & Desire (see above notation), one copy of Lustfully Ever After, and one copy of Cupid's Chokehold.

I'll draw three winners on July 31st and let those winners know on this blog, via email, and on Facebook.

Contestia!

Ok...

First, I am all moved.

Yay, writer in the House! For Shizzle.

Whatever that means.

So... maybe I'll actually be around here more often and making with the writing. I have a few short-shorts due July 15th, a novella in the works, and part 3 of London Steam that I'm working on.

(in various loose interpretations of the word "work" because I am all kinds of not-capable of multi-tasking... also, I am all kinds of not-capable of letting other people do work when I am not working. It's one of those things... if the Husband is cleaning, I have to stop what I'm doing and clean TOO, even if I've been cleaning all day and I just want to relax. I have actually gotten to my feet to help him clean when I'm about two seconds away from bursting into tears from exhaustion.... I feel inordinately GUILTY when someone is doing something that I consider "my job" and cleaning and packing and moving are all parts of my job description... which is probably why we haven't moved in eight years...)

We still have one more big thing to do with the house. We're getting hardwood floors installed, and they did the Great Room last week before we moved in, but because our timeline was so tight, they weren't able to get it all done before we moved. So the office - where I am now typing to you from - wasn't fixed. The wood is in my closet, "acclimating..." and they'll bring in a few more crates of that on Friday to acclimate over the weekend. But it does mean I have to move my desk AGAIN and my computer stuff AGAIN to get out of the way while they replace the hideous white carpet.

Then there are about 400 million smaller projects, including all the UNpacking... and I have a bet with my dad that I can be "completely unpacked" by June 23rd. (Don't ask. My father and I are physically incapable of not pissing each other off if we're in the same room for more than 3 days... and he was here all week helping. And I appreciate the help. And at the same time... )

So, I'll be off-line again for Monday - Wednesday or so, which they install floor.

Ok... Now! Contest... what you're all actually interested in, I expect...

I have a "gift box" for one lucky reader; it includes a copy of Lustfully Ever After, a copy of Steamlust, an e-copy of Blister Effect (officially released next week, so this contest will run til a week past its release date!), an e-copy of Shifting Steam, The Age of Steam CD from my friend Jonah Knight (either a music download, or I can get the actual physical CD if you still do that sort of thing!) and a poster from last year's Ladies of Steampunk calendar; the Absinthe Fairy. (Link shows you the picture, I have it as a small poster...) Both physical books will be signed to a person of your choice, and if you want the physical CD, I'm almost positive I can get Jonah to sign it for you. He's nice like that. Also, weird. But nice.

So, here's the deets: comment below for one entry. That's it. No need to buy anything or retweet or whatever... if you DO retweet or facebook link or any of that fun stuff, I will add one extra entry for each "social media" thing you do, just LET ME KNOW that you've done so in the comments below, because I am social media inept sometimes and I might not see it. My twitter handle is @tisfan and Lynn Townsend is me on Facebook, so include appropriate linkage!

Blister Effect is released on May 23rd, and so I will run this contest til May 31st.

Have at!

A post of absolutely no substance whatsoever

Hi!

I'm still in the process of moving. God. The new new revised plan is to close on Wednesday. My tiny little apartment is filled with boxes and I am filled with crazy.

Tomorrow is my birthday, just so you know. 40 years of the world having to put up with me, and me having to put up with the world.

I spent Friday night in the E.R. And for once, it was me doing the sitting around and waiting. Usually it's me doing the writhing around on the cot. So, that was a new experience. And I have to say, ER chairs are hella uncomfortable. More so at 2am than other times. (Don't worry, everyone's fine. The husband has kidney stones, which he might debate as "not fine" but it's not life-threatening... just unpleasant.)

I have 2 stories coming out this month; Lustfully Ever After, which contains my short story, Garden Variety.

Some ARC review excerpts:

"... and Lynn Townsend’s “Garden Variety,” in which an urban gardener’s beanstalk finds a most unorthodox way to repay her ministrations." - Publisher's Weekly

"Townsend's take on Jack and the Beanstalk is creative and erotic..." - Laurie Gold

So, you know, there's that.

Lustfully Ever After is currently available on Amazon, even tho it's not technically released until the 15th, but hey... We don't mind.

And then The Blister Effect will be out through Torquere toward the end of the month; that will be available as an eBook only. (also, for those of you who don't pay attention, that's a sequel to Shadow of Kenfig, released as part of Shifting Steam last October. Also, it's m/m, so if that's not your thing, you're warned.)

And I updated the look of my author page on Facebook. If you don't follow me there, you should. I'm much more likely to say stuff on Facebook because I am hella lazy these days.

But, keep your eyes out. Once I get my copies of Lustfully Ever After, I'll be doing another promo contest, and I have some nice stuff; a CD, 2 books, and a few other spiffs. 

Oh, Just a Few Mentions in Magazines...

Well now, would you look at this? April 2012, Hustler Magazine.

Or, just maybe... this...

Put a Bow on It

Merry Midwinter Spending Holiday.

(That fits everyone's beliefs and offends as many people as possible.)

I'd say I'm sorry I've been MIA, but I'm not. I spent 10 days in Orlando, Florida, which was excellent, and I'm not sorry about that. Here, have a picture!

The weather was almost ideal the whole time - it was a little chilly and rained a bit one day, but that was it. I had a great time. The husband had a great time. The child had a great time, with only a few tears. She reached MFQ a few times.

As I had to explain this while down in Florida, here's the quick and dirty: MFQ = Maximum Fun Quotient. The time after MFQ is reached, no matter how fun an activity, no matter how much you've been looking forward to it, etc, you just cannot have any more fun. You are tired, or overloaded, or both. Toddlers reach MFQ fairly quickly.

As one of the bout of tears had to do with the fact that we cannot take live baby ducks home, I sort of wrote that off as MFQ.

In the real, non-Disney world: One of my stories returned home to me, unpublished. This is not because it wasn't good; in fact I am assured by the editor that it was, actually, very good and would have been accepted for publication except that the editor is having a hard time of things and just doesn't feel she can get the book out any time soon, so has put the project on permanent hiatus. I'm mildly sad about this, since I really adore this editor, and I would have loved to have a project with her name on it. On the other hand, I'm delighted that she liked my story, even if I can't, in the interest of politeness, tell you who she is. I did some looking around and turned the story around to someone else; hopefully I'll find a home for it. If not, I might offer it up as a free-read or a 99cent Amazon deal. We'll see. Amazon's stuff confuses me.

I'm deep into the "I hate Christmas" part of the year. My hand to god, one year, I'm just gonna snap and there will be Rudolf guts everywhere. My family drives me crazy in the most well-meaning sort of way. I never feel like I've done enough, or can buy enough, and those feelings in and of themselves make me crazy because that's NOT what it's supposed to be. And hell's bells, I'm not even Christian, so why am I doing this anyway? Except that I would feel MORE bad if I didn't, and honestly, I have enough guilt to lug around without deliberately adding to the stack.

My writing schedule is finally Not Whack, which is good.

I have 2 more chapters in Blood Sight to write, and then it'll be time to dig into the re-writes and edits. I have cut 20,000 words out of Marked Man so far, with another 30-45k to go. I am almost done writing Blister Effect (6k out of 9-10k). I have detailed out the plot for Wind Counterclockwise, a B&S Menage piece, expected to run 15 - 20K. I have re-read and started plotting for the rewrite of Circle in the Sand, a co-written Menage novel with my dear friend Elizabeth L. Brooks. I have plotted out the story for a 10 - 15k m/m novelette called Roll. I have plotted out the story for a f/f short 3,500 - 5k words story tentatively called Alive and Kicking. I also have tentatively decided to write a 10-20k novelette for an End of Days antho.

Out in the wild, I have PBEM, Snake Dance, Which Way the Wind Blows, and Ripped, still waiting to hear; and On the Fly has been submitted elsewhere. Lustfully Ever After has achieved cover-art.

I'll see you all next year!

Kiss the Cats Goodbye

I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this year.

Personally, I'm convinced I'm deranged. (yeah, I know, I was deranged before... shut up.)

I'm also in the middle of buying a house, moving out of the apartment I've lived in for 8 years, celebrating my best friend's 40th birthday, prepping for a vacation in Orlando in the beginning of December, dunno what my plans are for Thanksgiving yet, and dealing with another friend's failing marriage.

Not that real life ever stops happening.

And I probably won't get time to write on the weekends, so I'm looking at 2,300 words per weekday.

Yeah.

Deranged. You heard it here first.

I've decided to go ahead with Blood Sight, after another dear friend helped me with my outline. I know, I know, NaNo is about vomiting onto the page with no plan, but fuck it, I'd like a better shot at finishing. I want to write this novel, it's been percolating for a few years now and if nothing else, I want Marcus out of my head. My head is a really crowded place.

(Completely aside, I seem to have finally mastered only putting one space at the end of a sentence. Yay learning curve.)

I may not write much here, while I'm working, so if you don't see me, I haven't died yet.

Meanwhile: Steamlust is available for your Kindle or Nook. And Shifting Steam is now available on Kindle and also as a trade paperback. Lustfully Ever After is available for pre-order on Amazon, too, although there's not yet a pretty cover, and will be out in May.

See you on the flipside!

I Heard the News Today, oh boy!

(I'm officially old. Making Beatles references. Nevermind, you all knew that already.)

Soooooo....I got the official word, after several months of Facebook stalking my editor; Garden Variety has been picked up for the Lustfully Ever After collection.

Which is pretty cool. Lustfully Ever After is sort of the sequel (if a collection of loosely related short stories can have a sequel) to the collection released last year, Fairy Tale Lust. I've told you the story of how I met Kristina, my editor, right? Well, part of that meeting involved my introducing her to Amy, the owner of my local coffee shop, so that she could do some book promoting locally. I finally met her face to face the night she did her reading and promotion of Fairy Tale Lust, and for me, that was the moment where we really clicked.

So, it just feels like a nice karmic balance for me that I should get a story into the sequel.

Also, I particularly like Garden Variety, despite all the weirdness surrounding it. (Writing it had its own little drama that I still don't want to talk about because it was weird.) Of the seven or so stories I've written to Spec this year, Garden Variety is my favorite, probably because it covers one of my own personal kinks.